#07.10.20

Eəlik was exiting the canteen with Human Anthea when she dropped her 'snack carrot', hastened to pick it up, exclaimed "five second rule!" and heartily bit into it again.

"...Excuse me?" Eəlik remembered his course in human manners when he wanted to ask about this strange behaviour.

"Oh, the five second rule" Anthea mumbled with a mouth full of earthly vegetable before remebering her own manners, chewing, swallowing and continuing to speak: "It's a human thing."

Eəlik had expected as much.

"Basically, when I drop some food, if I pick it up within five seconds or less, I can eat it without having to wash it again!"

Eəlik blinked. "That is- highly illogical. Terran bacteria as well as other contamimants do not all take the same time to contaminate different edible substances. In addition to this, the hallway E-71 as most other spaces on this vessel is routinely de-contaminated, any such rule would therefore be unnecessary in this space, even if it was logical in the first place."

Anthea laughs. "That's a fancy way of saying we could eat on the floor here! Yeah, no, sure it's not really logical, I really just do it cause it reminds me of home, illogical and all- we'd have picknicks and bonfires in the wild, and of course us kids would drop things, but we'd still eat it all according to the five second rule!"

"Illogical humans" Eəlik mutters under his breath.

Anthea tilts her head. "Oh, I don't know" she says quite thoughtfully. "Sure we're not very logical, but that's why illogical rules make sense for us, right? I mean, you'd probably know exactly which bacteria could be where and to what kind of food it would stick and in what dosage it'd be dangerous to you... we humans don't tend to know that, we just know something fell to the floor. And we're pretty durable, we can survive to eat most dirt. Plus, in human history, we were often short on food, so we couldn't waste things needlessly... but when something falls to the ground, it's gross or socially unacceptable to eat it- except with the five second rule, it isn't anymore!"

Eəlik stares at her. That even somehow makes sense. Still... "Illogical humans, coming up with such intricate rituals for the easiest things."

"Oh, shut up!" Anthea laughs, so he knows she did not mean it in a menacing way. "I've seen the way you layer your robes and stuff- don't talk to me about needlessly intricate rituals!"

Grease.